


Touching from a distance.

by orphan_account



Category: British Actor RPF, Coriolanus, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coriolanus - Freeform, Donmar Warehouse, F/M, Joy Division - Freeform, Romance, Song Lyrics, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-13 00:57:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4501653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For years Tom has had strange dreams of the same woman, he can't quite shake the feeling they were meant to be together.<br/>Eight hundred years in the future Lissi struggles to cope with the what she takes to be a pointless and passionless life, she seeks comfort in her work and her secret love of Tom.</p><p>Yeah...I've had a bash at time-travel romance innit?! ;)</p><p>The song Lissi and Tom sing is by Joy Division and it's Transmission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touching from a distance.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick note to mention the sweeps in the story are like the high tech futuristic glass screens you see in most sci-fi movies. I called them sweeps due to the idea of the whole touch screen thing and the sweeping movement of hands.

2815

Lissi yawned and watched as the last few stragglers for the night were ushered out by the increasingly shabby looking mechs. This place was on the way out, the funding dwindling year by year. It had been much different eighteen years ago, back then it had piqued people's curiosity. These days if it wasn't for the school trips or the older gen looking for a gentle day out it would barely get a glance. Located on the site of the mighty Donmar the museum showcased various plays on the sweeps and had interactive holograms of the actors from bygone times. Embarrassingly outdated now but once it had a certain charm about it. Now? It could barely compete with the huge looming tourist attractions in London.  
Lissi knew her days were numbered here but she couldn't bring herself to resign.

It was her passion for history and theatre that kept her there. That and him.  
Him.  
Her secret. The reason she'd spent an obscene amount of money tracking down rare items such as ancient devices like a dvd and blu-ray player to watch her treasured collection of him. She was in love with a man who was long gone into the ether yet he still lingered as one of the greats of his time and that was how Lissi had discovered him. A boring lesson, the other kids had booed and tutted as their teaching mech had begun but not Lissi. She was transfixed by this man...in a time of such sterile order he represented a freedom to her. They all looked so different back then before genetic engineering had tailored the human race to their very best.  
He made her feel.  
She fell hard.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2013

Tom's nerves had soon vanished once he took the stage. All afternoon he'd felt her.  
Her.  
His secret.  
The one he dreamt about.  
She was always stood in what he took to be a glass spaceship but he wasn't entirely sure it was that.  
It was ridiculous. He felt her more than ever tonight, it was as though her presence was engulfing him. She plagued him nightly, just as their lips would meet he'd wake and punch the mattress.  
Years of it.  
He tried not to compare the real flesh and blood women he dated to her but deep down he knew he was guilty of doing so.  
After the show he stood in his dressing room reluctant to leave...she was here.  
"Not in this lifetime." Tom mumbled bitterly to himself.  
Outside he signed the booklets and took the photos with his fans before heading off home to be with his thoughts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2815

The school kids shrieked with laughter as the holograms began talking. One rowdy boy lobbed his rucksack through Tom and had Lissi instantly seeing red.  
"Excuse me, would you mind not doing that? It's rude." Lissi snapped.  
"Whatever..it's not like anyone cares is it?" he sneered.  
"I care. This is my museum." Lissi expected his attitude, kids always found the place a source of amusement.  
"It's not really your museum though..your just one of those stupid overseers my Dad says. You flick a few sweeps. Even mechs do that. What's the point of you or this place anyway?" he turned and picked up his bag and rejoined his class.  
Lissi couldn't shake the sadness that washed over her from his words.  
No one in this lifetime cared about what she held dear.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2013

"You need to get your head out of the clouds man." they said.  
They were right.  
Tom took a brief pause before he burst onto the stage. He didn't slip up once during his performance yet his head was full of her.  
He'd been having more intense dreams since the run of Coriolanus had started. She was with him.  
He felt her.  
Every night at the door he'd scan the faces and hope she was there only to meet fresh disappointment that she was nowhere to be seen.  
After tonight's show he found himself struggling to leave his dressing room. He placed a palm up on the mirror while never knowing that Lissi would hold her palm up against the hologram of his Caius in the exact same spot that he was now stood eight hundred years later.  
"Good night Tom."  
He flickered and vanished before her.  
Tom switched the lights off his mirror and left.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2815

"You've not been taking your serums. I suppose that's why your face is set that way."  
Dinner with her family always filled her with dread. They bought into the whole perfection lie, swallowing each potion that would keep them from thinking of what their purpose truly was.  
"You know I don't agree with them Dad." Lissi didn't bother looking up at her Father as she spoke.  
"They give you a lift, something you sorely need." her Mother was the biggest believer of all they were told. If it appeared on the sweeps then it must be true.  
"I'm fine as I am." she pushed her plate away and stood up.  
She had to go to her room, she hated that she still had to live with her parents but her income didn't allow for much else currently...not with her spending habits.

Upstairs in her room she paid handsomely for tattered copy of an old curiosity called a magazine that had Tom in. She'd collected a few of these rare pieces and kept them safe in her collection. After paying for that she went and checked her ingoings and outgoings..she was going to be poor for the rest of the month.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2013

Tom read over the interview and casually tossed it in the bin. He never knew the cleaner kept it..nor that it was one day going to be in the possession of a woman who would collect any scrap as long as it related to him.  
His dreams had been more vivid, he saw her pressing her palms up against him before he'd disappear. He didn't understand what it meant but he had a strange feeling that she was out of his reach. He'd always felt that strange longing for her and although he never mentioned it he had the unshakeable belief that she was real and not just a dream.  
"Ten minutes Tom." the knock on his door had him out of his chair and putting all his focus to tonight's show. He was grateful for the work as it kept him from thinking too much...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2815

"I just don't know Lis, maybe take half?" Halli held up the serum and placed it down for Lissi. It was getting harder to cope for Lissi and as much as she was loathe to admit it the lure of the serum called.  
"No thinking, no passion, no cares." she lifted the small silver phial up to her lips. In an instant she thought of Tom and his words.

“I gave myself permission to care, because there are a lot of people in this world who are afraid of caring, who are afraid of showing they care because it’s uncool. It’s uncool to have passion. It’s so much easier to lose when you’ve shown everyone how much you don’t care if you win or lose. It’s much harder to lose when you show that you care, but you’ll never win unless you also stand to lose. I’ve said it before. Don’t be afraid of your passion, give it free reign, and be honest and work hard and it will all turn out just fine.”

She dropped the phial and stepped on it.

"I knew you wouldn't." Halli smiled.

"Never surrender." Lissi replied half-jokingly.

"My friend Hue..he does the ancient art of.." Halli looked about sheepishly before mouthing "therapy."

A long dormant profession since the golden age of DNA engineering and serums to even out any blips. The human race might be the perfect embodiment of physical health and looks these days but somehow the brain would find a way to surface up those old negative feelings that shouldn't be ingrained in the child you've preordered down to the very last detail. The serums were invented to squash any of that.  
People walked around under the influence of the phials and it sickened the small minority who refused to partake.  
There was at least some guidelines and no child under the age of sixteen could have it, that alone made Lissi wonder just how safe it was. 

"Tell him to contact sweep 098675309." Lissi whispered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2013

It was five minutes to the new year and all around Tom the party was in full swing but he felt a strange sense of detachment as though it wasn't him they were talking too.  
He felt like she was close by. He'd wandered back and forth all evening hoping that tonight he would finally meet her.  
"You're losing it old chap." he muttered and went out into the garden to join in with the countdown.  
Another year.  
Still she wasn't to be found.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2815

 

"You let them take my stuff!" Lissi felt nauseous as she looked at her empty shell of a room. Nothing was left. All her collection was gone.  
"Why did you allow it Mum?" she felt the tears prick her eyes.  
"I think it's for the best. The Order picked up on your messages for therapy..why you're dabbling in that mumbo jumbo I'll never know. If you took your serums you'd be fine." her Mother shrugged. She was so under the influence these days there wasn't a shred of feeling left in her.  
"I don't fucking want the serums! Do you not stop to think what they're are doing to us? What they've done to us all? We work and come home, we watch our sweeps obsessively and buy whatever they tell us. Mech..fucking mech rules us all. We all look the fucking same...it's not right." she shouted.  
"I suppose all that old history nonsense is playing with your head. It's the now you need to live in Lissi...you're a grown woman." her Mother was so unconcerned.  
"Live? This is not living. This is pointless. Our purpose in life is to make sure the mech runs to keep The Order in charge....why do you think I've never took a job with any of the corporations? You're so blind!" Lissi charged past her Mother and left the house.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2014

Tom left the celebration not long after the chimes of Big Ben ceased. London was alive..people in the throes of excess.  
He should be back there enjoying himself but he'd been truly out of sorts since Coriolanus had started. It didn't help that his dreams had took it up a notch somewhat with their intensity. He needed the fresh air.  
For some reason his feet seemed to take him to the Donmar.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2815

In the museum Lissi sat under her coat and wept, the large hologram of Tom stalked about covered in blood. She knew it was only a matter of time before they'd come for her. Her Mother would've reported her to The Order. It's all the woman knew.  
She tapped her audio snap and drowned out the world. An old song from a less well known time.  
"Staying in the same place, just staying out the time.  
Touching from a distance.." she sang along.  
The doors to the museum burst open and light washed over her. She scrambled to her feet.  
Her palm stopped the hologram in mid speech and in an instant it went back to the standard opening hologram of Tom in his tuxedo.  
Tom held his palm up to hers to signal shutdown.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2014 

"Further all the time..." Tom sang and placed his hand up on his mirror. He'd blagged security to let him in retrieve his laptop. A laptop that wasn't even there.  
He switched his radio on and smiled when Joy Division blared out.  
Tom knew she was close.  
It made no sense but what in life did?

 

She felt it first.  
Warmth.

Tom closed his eyes.  
It felt like the glass was melting under his palm.

 

"There you are." he managed.  
She was real. Her hand against his..he drew her towards him.

"I've dreamt about you for the longest time." Tom knew if he hadn't had so much whisky throughout the night he'd be in shock.

Lissi felt her legs buckle.  
"You're real." she couldn't stop herself from crying. "I don't understand."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2015

"Tell me again about London." Tom snuggled up to Lissi as she told him all about the floating capital city for the millionth time.  
"It's still strange that we'll have no royal family." he absentminded twiddled a lock of her hair.  
"That's the part you find strange? Not the fact that A.I practically rules us, not that we've contacted other life forms but the fact we don't have a royal family? You are something else Tom." Lissi laughed.  
"What happened to them?" he waited expectantly. She couldn't help herself.  
"They we're sacrificed to the a Atissi overlords." she hid her smirk with a fake yawn.  
"Oh my god." Tom's eyes widened in shock.  
"Kidding! They were actually overthrown by The Order." Lissi drew her finger across her throat. "I'm not kidding about that."  
"That's horrible." Tom looked saddened.  
"Yeah well that's not for another 400 years Tom and it was well before my time so save your tears." Lissi snuggled up to his chest.  
"So what was the Atissi?" Tom stroked her hair.  
"They did coffee near the museum...speaking of which I would love a cup." Lissi sniggered.  
"You are unbelievable.." Tom muttered and slipped out of bed.  
He stopped in the doorway "Do you miss it?"  
Lissi shook her head "Not at all...now coffee. Chop, chop!"  
"Bossy." Tom tutted.  
"Hey I slipped threw a wormhole to be with you...it's the least you can do!" Lissi called after him.  
She heard him laugh while pottering about in the kitchen and grinned.  
At last she was where she truly belonged.


End file.
